Catching ferries around the Greek Islands is truly the only way to get around without blowing your budget on local airlines or private boats. This is also the case in Italy and Croatia, when visiting islands or exploring coastal areas. There are so many independant ferry companies out there, but luckily there is an easy way to find the best one. We always used Ferryhopper, an amazing website that compiles everything!
Ferryhopper is so easy to use, and is our go-to website for booking ferries in Europe. It compares every ferry company’s times and prices and it is perfectly safe to book through Ferryhopper. You can even book multiple trips with their “island hopping” search function.
The Greek Islands
For the Greek Islands, we only ended up booking Blue Star ferries through Ferryhopper, and these ferries were great. They’re the largest ferries that sail between the Greek Islands and are the size of a small cruise ship. If you get sea sick (like Krissie does), these large ferries are definitely your best option. They always leave from the main ferry port and there are usually lots of signs and waiting areas for passengers.
Onboard, there are usually one or two restaurants that serve hot food, some souvenir shops, bathrooms and lots of seats. Saying that, our ferry to Athens was absolutely packed and definitely did not have enough seats for everyone. However, the weather was awful that day, so no one was utilising the outdoor seats. If it’s a nice day, you won’t have any trouble finding somewhere to sit.
Loading of the Ferries
The loading of these ferries is so chaotic. There isn’t any order for boarding, so people often crowd around to try and get one first. The luggage is stowed in the same section as the cars, which can be a bit difficult when cars are also entering. We also found that there’s never enough racks for all the luggage. Everyone then has to line up at 1 or 2 entrances into the seating area, which also results in crowds. You then have your ticket scanned by a staff member before heading up to the seating. This takes ages, and meanwhile cars, trucks and buses are also driving onto the ferry right by the crowds of people.
Getting off is a lot easier! You just head down and grab your luggage and wait until the doors open to let you off. As the ferries are so large and are the cheapest option, it’s still worth the hassle in our opinion!
Ferries Around Italy and Croatia
When catching ferries around Italy and Croatia, we just picked the companies that were cheapest and had departure times that suited us, and still booked everything through Ferryhopper. Any company that appears on there should deliver a safe and comfortable trip, so you should be fine with whatever ferry you end up on. All ferries had a depature point allocated that we could just look up on Google Maps if it was a big city, or they would just leave from the main point of smaller places (ie. Capri and Hvar) and when we arrived at the ferry port it was usually well signposted.
While we only used Ferryhopper in Italy, Greece and Croatia you can also use it for ferry journeys all around the Mediterranean including Spain, Morrocco and Algeria and other countries in Europe such as Denmark and the UK.
Catching ferries in Europe is super easy and we never had a problem. We never had any cancellations or significant delays and all of our rides were very smooth so we’d absolutely recommend using ferries and FerryHopper to explore even more of Europe!
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